


Living in the Third Person

by PrinceofFlowers



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26333179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofFlowers/pseuds/PrinceofFlowers
Summary: Another piece written for a class. This was my final draft of it before submitting to workshop.





	Living in the Third Person

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, there is a somewhat detailed description of a dog bite.

He barely remembers what led to this as his vision tunneled, cotton filling his ears and muffling any sound, legs moving forward without his knowledge. 

He manages to make out the image of his dog dragging himself across the floor, front legs strong, but back legs limp behind him as he pulls himself across the carpeted floor. 

He tries to pick him up, tries to see where the dog is hurt, tries to prevent any more rug rash on his hairless tummy, when he lashes out, teeth cutting down to bone, tasting blood before retreating.

He feels like he’s playing a video game in third person as he watches himself stumble into the kitchen, trying to stop the bleeding with wadded paper towels, falling to his knees behind a chair tucked into the dining room table as his body curled around his injured hand.

Time stops when his body goes slack, screen going dark. When the colors return, the bleeding has slowed to a sluggish dribble, so while cradling his injured hand, he gets back up to his feet. As he does, his vision blurs out again, his head tingling, but he persists.

He still can’t see clearly, but he knows his house, and grabs a leash sitting by the sliding glass door of his porch. By the time he can make out shapes, he’s stumbling towards his dog, leash looped to make a makeshift muzzle just in case he bites again. By the time he remembers where he is, he’s got his dog calmed down and in the bottom half of a kennel.

Static noise fills his every senses, numb to the world around him, and before he knows it, he’s being gently prodded by a woman in blue scrubs as he sits motionless as a statue in the lobby of a veterinary clinic.

She’s trying to fake a smile to assure him, but the corners of her lips can’t quite curve all the way upward, and the light never reaches her eyes as she gently coaxes him up from his seat to follow her.

His steps are slow and heavy, but the sights he takes in remind him of the blurs of traffic on a highway.

Everything stops, and he’s able to focus once he sees his dog laying inside the bottom half of his kennel, propped up with towels, pink bandage wrapped around one of his short, little legs. 

He looks into his eyes, the brown of his irises a thin ring around his dilated pupils. He slowly turns his head to him, and drool drips down the side of his mouth in slow motion, but he’s still alive.

He swayed on his feet, a faceless technician swooping in before he fell, seating him on a cheap, plastic chair next to the counter his dog was sitting and drooling on. A disembodied hand waved a tissue in his face, and he felt as if his arm was moving against a current as he went to accept it, forcefully blowing his nose into it before crumpling it up into the palm of his hand.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he found his way back into his own body. The next thing he remembers is his hands guided by the cold, skeletal hands of the vet as she taught him where to press down on his dog in order to get him to pee. 

He still couldn’t understand what she was saying. She sounded like a teacher in the _Peanuts_.

_Wah wah. Wah. Wah wah wah._

Eventually, however, he understood enough to get his dog, get the prescriptions for his dog, pay the four figure bill, and leave to run around town getting the medicines from different pharmacies before heading home. Though, with every action, he felt less and less like this was real life, and more and more like he was just fulfilling objectives in a video game, watching his character run around in third person.

It wasn’t until the pain in his gnawed fingers reminded him that this was all real, that reality finally seeped in.

**Author's Note:**

> This covers what happened when my dog, Fritz, initially injured his back, and how I felt about everything that happened that day.
> 
> Mainly, the excessive dissociation, and how unreal it feels when tragedy suddenly strikes.


End file.
